(As West Bengal gears up for the Assembly polls, every Tuesday, The Indian Express’s Kolkata bureau chief Ravik Bhattacharya decodes the electoral trends, political signals, and campaign moves shaping the contest.)
Forty-eight hours is all it took for Mamata Banerjee to establish why, despite all the accusations of high-handedness and corruption against the Trinamool Congress (TMC), she remains an ace when it comes to the art of the political theatre, one of the only few Opposition leaders who can give the BJP a run for its money when it comes to optics.
With this, the West Bengal Chief Minister unveiled her electoral strategy that revolves around the two Ms that have served her faithfully since she began her rise to power: Muslims and Mahila.
First, on February 4, the West Bengal Chief Minister appeared in the Supreme Court to argue her case against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). Though the state was adequately represented by senior lawyers, Banerjee stood in court number 1 and made her case before a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, who also took note of this fact.
However, even before Banerjee had made her way to the court, the TMC turned it into a spectacle, first unleashing an online blitz with edited photos of her with the Supreme Court building in the background. The news of a sitting CM going to the top court — no one could remember when such a thing had last happened — drew the attention not just online —reels labelled her a Royal Bengal tigress — but also the national media. Banerjee, an expert at the optics game, has long been adept at making the most of her street-fighter image, which has helped her reap dividends.
In 2021, with the TMC facing allegations of corruption — cut money and syndicate culture were the buzzwords back then — and battling desertions, the image of Mamata conducting rallies with a bandaged leg had bolstered the image of a leader who could not be kept down by anything, not even a bruised and bandaged leg. With the campaign built around the projection of Mamata as Bengal’s daughter — Bangla nijer meye ke chaye (Bengal wants its daughter) — the TMC sailed to a comfortable victory, restricting the BJP to 77 in the 294-member Assembly. In 2016, too, Banerjee had risen similarly to blunt the effects of the Narada sting operation and the Saradha Ponzi scam that had pushed the TMC to a corner.
The anti-SIR push also serves the Bengal CM the chance to solidify her position as the only viable choice for Muslims, negating the unhappiness in sections of the minority community over the OBC list row and her temple inauguration spree to stop the BJP from making a play for the Hindu vote through polarisation.
Mamata’s welfare politics
Just a day after appearing in the Supreme Court, Banerjee was back in Kolkata as her government presented the vote on account, or interim Budget, in which the emphasis was on direct benefit transfers (DBT) schemes. The government increased the money allocated for the Lakshmir Bhandar scheme for women beneficiaries and announced a stipend for unemployed youth who have cleared the Class 10 exam.
Following the Rs 500 per month hike in Lakshmir Bhandar, women from the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) will now receive Rs 1,500 per month. Launched before the 2021 Assembly elections, the scheme had proved to be a hit with women, quite similar to how schemes such as Ladli Behena and Majhi Ladki Bahin have bolstered the BJP in states such as Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. Till now, 2.2 crore women have benefited from Lakshmir Bhandar, including 29 lakh SC women and 4.78 lakh Adivasi women. The Mamata government also hiked the monthly salaries of ASHA and Anganwadi workers, who are mostly women, by Rs 1,000. Anganwadi workers in the state will now receive Rs 5,500 per month.
The government also announced that people between 21 and 40 years will get a monthly unemployment allowance of Rs 1,500 for five years or till they get a job, whichever is earlier, under a scheme for the youth.
However, this increased allocation for women-centric schemes and DBTs has come at the expense of allocations for mid-day meals, pre-matric and post-matric scholarship, the Public Health Department, Mass Education Extension and Library Services, School Education, and self-help groups.
With the state being cash-strapped and dependent on loans, the Opposition has criticised the Mamata government’s financial policies as fundamentally detrimental to the Bengal economy. Then there is the added pressure of paying 25% of the pending Dearness Allowance (DA) dues from 2008 to 2019 by March 31, as per a Supreme Court directive. Contractors across the state have also been pointing out that there are unpaid dues. As a result, basic civic work, including road repairs, remains pending at several places across the state.
While the BJP has criticised the interim Budget as a “shopping list of election bribes”, filled with promises “that are legally impossible to implement”, and labelled Mamata’s appearance in the Supreme Court a “gimmick”, selling this narrative to the voters is the real challenge.